CHONGQING — It might be a long way off but a free-trade agreement with China is a goal worth working toward that could one day create significant jobs for the Canadian economy, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s The House near the end of a four-day trade mission to China capped by the long-sought loan of two giant pandas, Harper was asked about the view expressed by China’s Premier Wen Jiabao that the two should reach a full-out free trade agreement.

Harper pointed to the conclusion of talks on a foreign investment protection agreement as “the first major economywide agreement between our two countries.”

He said the two have also committed to complete a joint study this spring that will look at where Canada’s and China’s economies are “complementary.”

“It will lead us to discussions to examine the feasibility and some of the potentials of a free-trade agreement,” Harper said.

“That’s still many steps from actually reaching a free-trade agreement. We’re not under any illusion there would (not) be some significant obstacles. But this government’s agenda is to diversify our trade,” he said.

He noted discussions underway with the European Union, India, efforts to join the trans-Pacific Partnership, and other Asian partners like the Japanese and the South Koreans.

“So my view is we get as many irons in the fire as we can and we see how far we can take it.

“There will be enormous opportunity in China if we could ever get to that stage,” said the prime minister, “but at the same time (we’re) not under any illusions that there would be … a significant number of economic and other questions that would have to be answered.”

It was a bold statement that went perhaps a bit further than he initially intended.

When he met reporters after ruffling the fur of a 4 1/2-month-old baby panda held by his wife Laureen, Harper appeared to downplay it.

He said the study to be completed this spring will examine “the potential for increased synergy between the two economies and I think we know that, broadly speaking, that these two economies are complementary.”

“I think it would be premature to talk about free trade agreement today.”

He said there would be “considerable steps and some obstacles and questions that would have to be addressed” first.

“But what we have committed to do is move our economic and trading relationship to the next level. So this is a serious discussion we will be having with the Chinese over the next few months, and then we will examine what the next potential step is. But, as I say, I think that would be a very long-run goal and not one that we would be talking about this day.”

Pressed to clarify if he thought the process would play out over months or years, Harper said “I wouldn’t put a time frame on it.”

On this trip Harper has pitched Canada’s desire to export energy to China, and welcomed China’s hunger for its energy products.

When asked in the CBC interview if there is a danger in getting too close in the relationship and how far he should let the Chinese invest in Canada, particularly around the development of our natural resources, Harper said only: “I don’t think we’re at a risk point right now.”

Canada now sells 99 per cent of its energy to the United States, and “hasn’t penetrated the Asian markets very far and obviously that’s a priority for the government even in terms of investment.”

“I’m told people talk about the huge investment into the oilsands — it’s less than 10 per cent today.”

He said Canada always looks at investments from countries like China which have state-owned enterprises to be sure “the investment is being done on a commercial basis that the interest is ultimately in normal commercial transactions and that there’s not broader objectives that might undermine Canadian security.”

The CBC Radio interview was taped in Guangzhou, hours before Harper came to the Chongqing Zoo, where he highlighted an agreement that will see a pair of giant pandas from China come to spend 10 years in Canada — five years at a time at the Toronto and Calgary zoos in 2013.

The names of the pandas are Er Shun and Ji Li, translated roughly as Number Two Smooth (because his mother apparently had a difficult birth on her first offspring) and the female Ji Li is translated several ways: Successful Pretty, or as Dashan (the comic Mark Rowswell and Harper’s “goodwill ambassador” here) put it “Successful Achievement.”

Harper was clearly enjoying himself at the end of his four-day trade and political outreach mission.

“I think anytime you’re standing in the same camera angles as a panda you’re having a good trip.”

He boasted the trip was “really moving us to a totally new level in our relationship, one that is going to be very good for both of our countries particularly good for the creation of Canadian jobs and opportunity in the future.”

“The 10-year loan of the pandas, besides being an obvious gesture of friendship, the length of that loan indicates the degree of commitment that the Chinese really do have and the optimism they have for the relationship going forward.”

Harper’s trip actually ended, however, on a final somewhat awkward note. Meant to be a political outreach mission with China’s next generation of leaders, a meeting with a future political star showed the perils of second-guessing politics here.

Harper met with Chongqing communist party secretary Bo Xilai. But Bo fell out of official favour this week when his deputy chief and anti-corruption ally entered the United States consulate office here, prompting a political scandal that has already got the Chinese media predicting he was no longer a rising star bound for the Politburo in Beijing.

The deputy chief was sent on “stress leave,” Xinhua reported.

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